


Conspirators

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [426]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Brotp, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 19:57:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10446204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: preludeinz gave me a bunch of double-prompts for the brotp of John+Penny1) tol & smol





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> since these are all so short, stacking them as chapters of one fic :)

They were a distinctively lop-sided silhouette around campus.  John, all long limbs and slender height, his arm curved protectively around the smaller figure that was tucked up against his side.

Penny seemed designed to fit in the space against his ribs, regardless of the height of her heels.  She stepped into it like it was her right, like she had no doubt as to her welcome there.  John didn’t even seem to think about it, just lifting his arm to make room as she approached.

Even people who didn’t know John or Penny knew  _them_ , the lop-sided shape that wandered campus like a unit, like a team.  When they graduated, strangers didn’t know.

They just knew a shape was missing among the mass of figures that strolled the campus grounds.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> happy & sad

John wasn’t given to massive displays of emotion, and Penny knew that most people found him cold.

But Penny knew how to look, how to _see_  him, to sense what he was feeling, even if it wasn’t showing.

It was in her nature at these kinds of events to sweep the room for him, finding one tuxedo-ed figure out of the hundreds that thronged the ballroom.  She accepted a glass of champagne, chattered with the Minister, smiled at the cluster of her father’s friends sat in the ring of chairs off to one side.

This was her element; the chatter of a hundred voices, dozens of conversations overlapping a susurration that refilled her sails and let her keep her finger on the pulse of the world.

The only thing missing was the one man she was trying to find.

She let the voices fade, ignored the gossiping whispers and the laughter, and after a moment’s thought, turned to the stairs to the upper level.

He was almost lost in the shadows, an indistinct shape in the shade of a pillar.

Penny waved over a waitress, swapped her champagne for two glasses of water.  John barely glanced up as she held one out.  “Drink,” she told him.  “Then you’re getting me out of here.”

John smiled, she knew for the first time that night, and took the glass.  “Yes ma’am,” he murmured.  Up here, even in the quietest part of the room, the sound of voices and the chime of crystal and silverware, the thud of footsteps and the chords of the band were probably still too loud for him, grating against his senses instead of filling his sails.

She’d find out the gossip tomorrow.  Tonight, she was taking him home.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> coffee & tea

“Isn’t drinking coffee against the rules of the British aristocracy?”  Penny smiled neutrally at her cousin and reached past him to find her tin of Lady Grey and her favourite little teapot she kept for these kinds of days, when all she wanted was to brew her own tea in her own kitchen.

Behind the pot was the French press she’d bought him years before, a gag gift that’d gotten more use than most of the items in her kitchen.  His mug was next to her fine china teacup and saucer, one of the bags of beans he loved canted dangerously close to falling over.

She reset it to a safer resting place before beginning the ritual of brewing her tea.  “Seriously, cousin, has hanging out with those Yanks given you a caffeine addiction?”

Penny made sure her face was unreadable as she turned to her cousin and handed him one of the guest cups.  “Something like that.  Milk and sugar?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lies & slander

As the pressures of the semester had mounted and the rumour mill had spun up to full speed, their Friday night had become a habit.  Takeout devoured, wine glasses full, Penny rolled to lie on her back on the couch, her head cradled on his thigh.  “Ok, me first.  This week’s rumour is that you and I are planning to elope to Vegas over the winter break.”

John scoffed, almost slopping his wine over the rim of his glass.  “Weak sauce, Creighton-Ward,” he teased.  “I heard that I am blackmailing you into kinky sexual favours.”

Penny pursed her lips, considering.  “How kinky are we talking here?”

John looked down at her, gently brushing a loose strand of hair off her brow with his free fingers.  “The rumour-er was too polite to say.  Possibly because at that point they realized I was at the next table.”

Penny made a rude noise at the back of her throat.  “Weak,” she threw back at him.  “Whips and chains at least.”

John laughed so hard he had to put down his glass, and Penny counted it as a win.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> copper & gold

Parker stood, in standard driver’s pose, waiting by the door of Fab 1.  Across the wide courtyard that separated the street from the building, he saw his charge emerge in company of Master Tracy the Second.

Not for the first time, Parker reflected how limited people’s descriptions were.  He’d heard the two of them referred to more than once as the ‘pair of redheads’ but from where he was standing, that barely scratched the surface.

Lady Penelope was gold, bright and pure and so clearly precious that people flocked around her.  Yet for all the similarity of tone, Master Tracy was more a copper to Parker.  A little less obvious, a little less showy, yet so vital in so many places that if he were to vanish tomorrow, the world might just very well tilt off its access.

Together, though, they shone.  Parker wasn’t the only one to see that.  He bowed slightly as they approached, shedding the orbiting cloud of followers and wannabe-lackeys.  “Mulady, sir,” he greeted the pair of them, opening the door to usher them home.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oil&water

99.9999% of the time, John and Penny were almost opposite ends of the same will.  They finished each others sentences, acted without speaking in ways that fit the others desires, even with the width of the atmosphere between them.  Eos wondered, sometimes, if telepathy actually was a thing with humans.

It would explain a lot.  Unfortunately, it would not explains times like today which were the other 0.0001% of their interactions.

John never yelled, not during high stress rescues or arguments with his brothers.  He wasn’t yelling now, and he wasn’t yelling very, very loudly.

Lady Penelope was yelling, her voice hitting notes that Eos would almost classify as ‘shrieking.’  She was calling John names that were classified in some of the dictionaries in her database as epithets.

To be honest, Eos was almost rooting for Lady Penelope.

“Five isn’t a racecar, you idiot, and I can’t believe I’m telling _you_  that!  A giant asteroid would turn you into so many splinters without even pausing. What were you _thinking_?”

John opened his mouth to reply, stilled, and exhaled slowly.  Eos tracked the microexpressions as John regained his temper.  “I’m sorry I scared you, Penny.”

The words shattered the disharmony, the very tenor of the silence changing and resettling back to its usual resonance.  “I worry about you at the best of times, John.  Please don’t…don’t do that again.”

John didn’t promise, and Eos knew Penny had heard the silence too.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> night & day

John saw about sixteen sunrises every day.  He had an alarm set for one.

“Good morning,” he greeted the sleepy face in the holo.

Penny in the morning still had her hair piled on top of her head, fresh-faced and in her pink pajamas.  She clutched her teacup as she settled more comfortably on the small chaise longue in her bedroom.  “Good morning to you too.  Been busy so far?”

It was typhoon seasons; John had been up for over twenty hours.  He could take ten minutes now and recharge.  “Five impossible things before breakfast, m’lady.” He raised his own, sealed, coffee cup in toast.  “How’s England?”

“A land of senseless beauty,” she quoted.  “Also getting frightfully chilly.  Christmas will soon be here.  Will you?”

John shrugged and dodged the question.  “I’m here now.”

Penny didn’t call him on it, but instead began chattering about other things.  John listened to her start her day and felt his taut muscles unwind.  It was nice to start the day with her, even if just for a little while, before the sun set and rose for him again.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> love & hate

“I hate you.”

John didn’t waver, didn’t break eye contact.  “I’m totally okay with that.”

Penny almost snarled as she hunched over her cards, considering her strategy.  Muttering a curse against his parentage, she pulled two cards off the deck of mystery and yielded her turn, her mind already reworking her strategy.

John laid six of his black trains along the pink line, right between the two rows Penny was gathering cards to connect on the very next turn, and Penny nearly lunged across the table.  “STOP DOING THAT!”

John smirked and reached for two more tickets.  “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”

In the end, he even got longest train.  “Next time, we’re playing strip poker.”

John didn’t pause from clearing the board.  “And this is where I remind you I can count cards.”  He poured a handful of the little plastic trains back into their cup.  “We could always go to Vegas and clean them out for fun?”

Penny laughed.  “I take it back, I love you.”

He smiled at her from across the game board.  “I’m totally okay with that too.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sea&sky

The sand was warm between her toes, but Penny knew as soon as the sun finished setting, the night air would be chilly.

Next to her, John smoothed out a patch of blanket and settled down next to her, wriggling until he was comfortable.  “Good?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.

He took her ribbing with a gentle smile and reclaimed his binoculars.  “You’re going to love this.  I can’t believe we haven’t done this before now.”

Penny nudged him with her shoulder.  “Well, I’ve been dropping hints for the last decade, but you’re kinda dense.”

He made a slightly embarrassed face, an adorable little pursing of his lips.  “Well, I’m gonna make good tonight.  You and me, on this beach.”

She looked around them, empty but for the car they’d arrived in.  “Cliche, isn’t it?”

John winked at her.  “What’s the point of being the son of the first man of Mars if I can’t abuse the privileges to treat my favourite lady?”  He fell silent.  “You really want this?”

She leaned in close, until they were almost nose to nose.  “I really want to be here, John.  And here, on this beach, with you?  I’m thinking it’s going to be earth-shattering.”

John lit up like it was Christmas.  “It will be, I promise.”  Penny rolled in and let her head fall against his shoulder as she felt a faint rumble push up through her spine.

Next to her, John was counting down under his breath.  At three, the horizon across the bay lit up as the engines ignited.  At one, the entire beach shook as the superlifter’s main booster caught and fired.  They both tilted back as the rocket arched into the sky.

Penny fell back first, and dragged John down with her, his eyes never leaving the dome of darkening sky above them.  “That was amazing,” she said, breathlessly honest.

“One day, that’s gonna be me,” he told her like a secret, like a promise.

She took his hand.  “I know.”

They fell silent staring up as the first stars of the evening started to shine.


End file.
